Page 40 of His Forgotten Bride
It had been easier, certainly, to scramble up a tree in his youth, but there still remained something strangely satisfying about looking down on the world from the branches of a tree, sheltered within its boughs.
He settled on the branch, slinging his legs over to dangle down. Grabbing the branch with one hand, he bent to extend his other to Matthew. “Grab hold,” he said, “I’ll pull you up.”
His face lighting with glee, Matthew jumped and snagged Gabriel’s hand, but his glove sheared off of his hand and he fell to the ground straight onto his bottom. Valiantly, Gabriel managed to hold back a laugh at the boy’s startled expression, and he tucked Matthew’s glove into his pocket.
“Again,” he said. “This time, grab for my wrist.”
Scrambling to his feet, Matthew dusted himself off and tried again. His small fingers closed over Gabriel’s wrist, and Gabriel clasped his own hand around Matthew’s, heaving the boy upward. Matthew’s other hand flailed, latching around the branch, and at last he had achieved enough leverage to hoist himself the rest of the way up, landing on the branch beside Gabriel.
“Are you going to marry Mama?” Matthew asked as he settled there, kicking his legs.
Stunned, Gabriel inquired, “What would make you think that?”
Matthew shrugged. “I saw you kiss her,” he said. “You can’t kiss girls unless you marry them. Auntie Anne said so.”
So much for discretion. Gabriel turned, settling his back against the trunk of the tree, pondering how best to explain himself to the boy. And yet…for a reckless moment his mind seized on the thought.
Marriage. To Claire. It was not something he had considered, but he could not deny that the thought had appeal. She knew him better than anyone, and had not flinched from what she had learned. She was determined, brave, kind, and beautiful besides. She kissed like a dream and made him feel almost worthwhile, worth salvaging. He had no idea whether or not he was capable of love any longer, but he supposed that if anyone could tempt him to it, it would be Claire.
He could be Claire’s husband. He could be Matthew’s father. They wouldn’t replace the family that he had lost, but they might ease the pain of loss. He would not have topretendat being part of their little family—he could simplybea part of it.
“Do you…” Gabriel hesitated, staring at the boy sitting on the branch in an attempt to discern Matthew’s feelings on the matter. His face was visible only in profile, his eyes focused on a waxwing that had alighted upon the branches of a tree some distance away. “Do youwantme to marry your mother?”
Matthew settled his palms on the branch beneath him, his small shoulders hunching forward. “If you married Mama…would you be my papa?”
His heart gave a wretched pulse in his chest. “Yes,” he said, hearing the hoarseness of his own voice. “I would be your papa, and you would be my son, and—” Before he could say anything more, Matthew had shoved himself up and crawled across the branch, pausing just before Gabriel to settle back onto his knees.
“And I couldcallyou Papa?” he asked, and his green eyes were bright with emotion, his chin trembling.
“Of course.Of courseyou could call me Papa,” Gabriel said.
“And I wouldn’t have to go away again? I could stay here, with you and Mama?”
“Yes,” he rasped. “Matthew, regardless of whether or not your mother and I marry, you—and your mother—will always have a place in my home.”
With a shuddering sob, Matthew threw himself across the empty space that separated them, and Gabriel had to lurch forward to catch him lest he tumble straight off the branch in his exuberance. Clambering into his lap, Matthew cast his arms around Gabriel’s neck and settled his head on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Yes,” he said, as Gabriel smoothed his tangled hair away from his face with one hand, and the word was buried in the thick fabric of Gabriel’s coat. “Yes. I want you to be my papa.”
God help him, Gabriel wanted that, too. He wanted the right to call this child his own. Tobea father to him. It felt so natural, so right to cradle Claire’s son in his arms. So easy to imagine himself as part of their family.
If only Claire would fall into his arms so easily.
Chapter Twenty-One
Claire struggled to focus her attention upon the children’s book in her hands, reading through the lines printed upon the page without truly comprehending them. Matthew, freshly bathed and swathed in a clean white nightshirt, was tucked up against her side, turning the pages for her. Together they had gone through two books already, and even though it was well past the time when she ought to have bid him good night and left him to sleep, she found herself reluctant to leave.
Gabriel had requested her presence in the library after Matthew had been put to bed, and the manner in which he had issued the invitation had frazzled her nerves for the last few hours. Something had changed between them since that kiss on the terrace—something had changed inhim, and she was desperately afraid of it.
Something had even changed in the way he interacted with Matthew. When at last she had finished with the account books and had called out for Matthew to return to the house, it had taken them some minutes to appear in the distance. Matthew’s laughter had preceded them, and when at last they had breached the boundary of the trees at the edge of the lawn, she had drawn in a sharp breath to see her son seated on his father’s shoulders, his hands lifted triumphantly into the air.
They had both been bedraggled, their clothing rumpled and stained with mud, their hair disheveled by the wind. One of Matthew’s gloves had been tucked into Gabriel’s pocket, and Gabriel had split a seam in his coat, the sleeve hanging awkwardly on his left shoulder. And they had been wearing identical crooked grins that lifted in precisely the same way, the left corner tilted up to reveal dimples in their cheeks.
Her heart had stuttered in her chest, and she had braced her hand on the back of her chair and clutched the account books tightly as they had threatened to slip from her hands. Somehow she had managed to summon forth a smile for them, but her heart had pounded for long minutes afterward with the worry that some other servant might have seen them together, might have drawn unwanted conclusions about Matthew’s parentage.
“Mama,” Matthew said, pressing his cheek against her shoulder, “did you love my papa very much?”
Strange how such an innocent question could cause such an influx of shame. “Of course, darling. Nearly as much as I love you.” She dropped a kiss on his rumpled hair, easing her arm around his small shoulders. “You have always been the all the best parts of your papa. There’s so much of him in you.”
“When you marry his lordship, will you love him, too?”
